Re: Can dialer viruses turn on the computer?

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Date: 26 Mar 2005 22:07:31 GMT

"Norman L. DeForest" <af380@chebucto.ns.ca> writes:

>On Sat, 26 Mar 2005, David H. Lipman wrote:
>> From: "Cautious Nerd" <Cautious@Nerds.com>
>>
>> | Our home phone service provider advised a friend to always disconnect
>> | the phone line from the PC. The friend was apparently told that if one gets a
>> | dialer virus/trojan, it can act even with the computer turned off. I
>> | have a hard time seeing this. Is this just a case of
>> | "miscommunafication"?

Sounds like it. However, the next time he turns it on, the virus could
immediately dial out.

>> A "magic Packet" can be sent to the Network Interface Card (not Dial-Up) and a computer can
>> be powered-up. This can be prevented by using a Cable/DSL Router on a Broadband Internet
>> connection.

Depends. Some computers have a "wake on ..." like wake on lan. feature,
which can turn them on. But that has to come from outside.
Note that the Cable/Router is precisely attached to the lan and thus could
be used to turn it on. I do not know of any systems which have a "wake on
modem" feature, not least because I do not know of motherboards which have
modems built in.

>>
>> If a PC is infected with a Trojan or Virus and it is powered off, the Trojan or virus is
>> rendered inert and can not do anything until the PC angain powered-up.

>Can't some of the newer PCs with hardware power-management built-in be
>programmed to turn themselves on at a specific time? The real-time clock

I have not seen that. Maybe there are.

>can use its alarm feature to signal the power-management hardware to turn
>on the computer. And a trojan or virus sould easily set that alarm.

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